Free The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark

Bourgeoise keeps her love-letters in a
     sewing-box.
    A Lady has style; but a Bourgeoise does things under the poplars and in the orchard.
    A Lady is cheerful and accommodating when dealing with the perpetrators of a third-rate
     burglary; but a Bourgeoise calls the police.
    A Lady recognizes in the scientific methods of surveillance, such as electronics, a
     valuable and discreet auxiliary to her natural capacity for inquisitiveness; but a
     Bourgeoise regards such innovations in the light of demonology and considers it more
     refined to sit and sew.
    A Lady may or may not commit the Cardinal Sins; but a Bourgeoise dabbles in low crimes
     and safe demeanours.
    A Lady bears with fortitude that
Agenbite of Inwit,
celebrated in the treatise
     of that name in Anglo-Saxon by my ancestor Michel of Northgate in the year 1340; but a
     Bourgeoise suffers from the miserable common guilty conscience.
    A Lady may secretly believe in nothing; but a Bourgeoise invariably proclaims her belief,
     and believes in the wrong things.
    A Lady does not recognize the existence of a scandal which touches upon her own House;
     but a Bourgeoise broadcasts it
urbi et orbi,
which is to say, all over the
     place.
    A Lady is free; but a Bourgeoise is never free from the desire for freedom.’
    Alexandra pauses to smile like an angel of some unearthly
     intelligent substance upon the community. Felicity has put down her sewing and is
     looking out of the window as if angry that the rain has stopped. The other Sisters on
     the dais are looking at Alexandra who now says, ‘Sisters, be sober, be vigilant. I
     don’t speak of morals, but of ethics. Our topics are not those of sanctity and
     holiness, which rest with God; it is a question of whether you are ladies or not, and
     that is something
we
decide. It was well said in my youth that the question
     “Is she a lady?” needs no answer, since, with a lady, the question need not
     arise. Indeed, it is a sad thought that necessity should force us to speak the word in
     the Abbey of Crewe.’
    Felicity leaves the table and walks firmly to the door where, as the nuns file out, she
     stands in apprehensive fury looking out specially for her supporters. Anxious to be
     ladies, even the sewing nuns keep their embarrassed eyes fixed on the ground as they
     tread forward to their supper of rice and meat-balls, these being made up out of a
     tinned food for dogs which contains some very wholesome ingredients, quite good enough
     for them.
    When they are gone, and Felicity with them, Mildred says, ‘You struck the right
     note, Alexandra. Novices and nuns alike, they’re snobs to the core.’
    ‘Alexandra, you did well,’ says Walburga. ‘I think Felicity’s
     hold on the defecting nuns will be finished after that.’
    ‘More defective than defecting,’ says Alexandra. ‘Winifrede, my dear,
     since you are a lady of higher instincts you may go and put some white wine on
     ice.’ Winifrede, puzzled but very pleased, departs.
    Whereupon they join hands, the three black-draped nuns, Walburga, Alexandra and Mildred.
     They dance in a ring, light-footed; they skip round one way then turn the other way.
    Walburga then says, ‘Listen!’ She turns her ear to the window.
     ‘Someone’s whistled,’ she says. A second faint whistle comes across
     the lawn from the distant trees. The three go to the window to watch in the last light
     of evening small Felicity running along the pathways, keeping well in to the
     rhododendrons until she disappears into the trees.
    ‘The ground is sopping wet,’ says Alexandra.
    ‘They’ll arrange something standing up,’ Mildred says.
    ‘Or upside down,’ says Walburga. ‘Not Felicity,’ says Alexandra.
     ‘In the words of Alexander Pope:
    Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
    Content to dwell in decencies for ever.’
     
Chapter 4
     
    T HE deaf and elderly Abbot of Ynce, who
     is driven over to the Abbey once a week to hear nuns’ confessions, assisted by